Misanthropic [chat]

All is be misanthropic.

Christmas, O'Reilly, History

O'Reilly declared "victory" in the War on Christmas

Unfortunately, Christmas itself may not be very Christian.

I can't think of an appropriate metaphor.

Bill Moyers: Olbermann

The Bill Moyers interview with Olbermann

Watch it!

16 minutes into it he addresses the, well, "Aren't you just the anti-Bill-O?" question.

"Well, they're better written. The first-- no, I hate to-- I-- it's the most vulnerable point because it bothers me, too. It do-- it's the one criticism that I think is absolutely fair. We're doing the same thing. It is-- it becomes a nation of screechers. It's never a good thing. But emergency rules do apply. I would like nothing better than to go back and do maybe a sportscast every night. But I think the stuff that I'm talking about is so obvious and will be viewed in such terms of certainty by history that this era will be looked at the way we look now at the-- at the presidents and the-- the leaders of this country who rolled back reconstruction. I think it's that obvious. And I think only under those circumstances would I go this far out on a limb and be this vociferous about it."

Calendar.

World of Warcraft "Gear a Day" desk calendar

I think this is a wonderful idea.

(If you get a 404 error just follow the link again.)

Drenched in Dumb.

Warsaw is still not showing Golden Compass for reasons unknown. This morning I voiced my frustration and was inundated by a torrent of dumb which drown me in reminders of why I hate this town:

"Is it not coming to town because of the religious messages?"
"Aren't those books about killing god?"
"How can you kill something which is eternal?"
"You can't see that movie! The author of the books is an atheist!"
"I don't want to see it because if I go I'll want to read the books and they are about killing god."
"This movie is just like those anti-American war movies. We can't support it."

As is the case with a deluge there was no structure. Rather, these comments burst forth as if I had smashed the spigot or decimated the dam of accepted social silence which on most days keeps these thoughts happily contained in their reservoirs of idiocy.

I seem to have a water theme going today.

These critiques were not even assessments of the film itself. Rather, their understanding of the film, gleaned no doubt from a snippet from a half-read article, was subjected to their own rubric.

Atheism bad.
Golden Compass written by Atheist.
Golden Compass bad.

Forget an assessment of the thing itself. Forget the number of other movies written by super-secret atheists. Forget the content of the film (polar bears wearing armor who fight). No, stop at "an atheist wrote the book upon which the movie is based". That is apparently all one need know.

It's not even a sensible world view or life philosophy. It would be like flatly refusing to eat any food which contained or existed within proximity to vegetables; adopting the view that regardless of the entire dish that minute, inconsequential aspect somehow tarnishes the entire experience.

The film is not about atheism. Watching the film does not somehow endorse any religious view any more than viewing a movie based on a book written by someone who smokes pot is somehow an endorsement of pot. It's a movie which contains polar bears wearing armor who fight. Can't we all just focus on that so that I don't have to drive 45 minutes to a city not populated by dipshits with "head-up-ass" disease in order to see the fucking movie?

Please?

PRO IP Act

Helen A.S. Popkin wrote an article that was surprisingly not idiotic about the PRO IP Act, which is surprisngly idiotic.

Since you don't want to read the Bill here is a summary:

* Fines in copyright cases dealing with compilations would be increased. Right now, as in the case of Xoom v. Imageline, the maximum penalty for infringement of one compilation is $30,000. Now courts would be able to make "multiple awards of statutory damages" when compilations are infringed.

* Maximum penalties for repeat copyright offenders would be easier to obtain. Current law says that anyone who "willfully" infringes a copyright by distributing over $1,000 worth of material (including over a peer-to-peer network) is a criminal. The PRO IP Act keeps the 10-year prison term intact for felonious repeat offenders--but, crucially, deletes the requirement that repeat offenders must have distributed at least 10 copyrighted works within 180 days.

* Any computer or network hardware used to "facilitate" a copyright crime could be seized by the Justice Department and auctioned off. The proceeds would be funneled to the agency's budget. The process is called civil asset forfeiture, and typically the owner does not need to be found guilty of a crime for his property to be taken.

Probably the most extensive part of the PRO IP Act is its creation of a new federal bureaucracy called the White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative, or WHIPER. The head of WHIPER would be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

I'm going to go ahead and say that this is behooves no one except the RIAA.

New Blizzard MMO?

Anything Kotaku can post we can post better.

In response to speculation on the WoW forums about a job posting at Blizzard there was a blue post which said:

No, it is an unannounced Next-Gen MMO.

And that doesn't mean an expansion for World of Warcraft either.

A Next-Gen MMO? Not an expansion for World of Warcraft?

I don't want to play Diablo 3 on a Next-Gen Console and I don't know why Blizzard would release a MMO to compete with WoW.

Thoughts?

He's totally gay.

Hero.

BERLIN - A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after quaffing a liter (two pints) of vodka at an airport security check instead of handing it over to comply with new carry-on rules, police said Wednesday.

Huckabee: I appreciate the effort.

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, asks in an upcoming article, "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?"

To begin let me say that I truly appreciate what Mike Huckabee is trying to do. Mormons are insane and that fact cannot easily be contested. The problem is that while Huckabee intended to strike a blow against Mormons he actually struck a blow against Christianity.

You see, Mormons believe that God is the Father of all. So, it follows that Jesus and Satan would be brothers (given what "father" and "all" mean). The problem is that the source of this belief is not found in The Book of Mormon or some crazy Mormon writing. It is from the Bible:

"One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."
-Ephesians 4:6

The belief is not Mormon; the belief is Christian.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this. I doubt that many people will take the three minutes required to find the passage and realize that it is in Ephesians. This could lead to some delightful idiocy of the "Mormons are heretics because they believe something written by Paul" variety.

The saddest part of all of this is that Huckabee could have said, "Don't Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri and that Native Americans are one of the lost tribes of isreal and that Jesus lived in North America and that Joseph Smith found golden tablets buried in a hill near his house?"

Huckabee could have focused on MORMON beliefs that are uniquely MORMON and so illustrated how STUPID Mormons are. Instead Huckabee displayed that that:
1) Christianity is dumb.
2) Huckabee is dumb.
3) Huckabee has never actually read the Bible.

I appreciate the effort, though.

BIRTHDAY PRESENT!

PRESENT!!!

A Patrick Swayze Christmas

Huckabee: The Mark.

Huckabee on homosexuality (Source):

"Let's understand what sin means -- sin means missing the mark. Missing the mark can mean missing the mark in any area. We've all missed the mark. ... How we miss the mark is less important than we all miss the mark. The mark is that we have marriage -- men and women, they marry, they create children, and they train their replacements and you have a future generation then that creates their replacements and trains them. That's the mark. If we didn't have that as the ideal, we wouldn't have a civilization that was able to perpetuate."

I stare at this and no words come. Then I realize the problem: Pleasure. That's what is missing from this quote. Pleasure, love, desire, admiration, respect, companionship, attraction, beauty, honesty, love, love, love.

It's not there.

Huckabee has dismissed homosexuality as an option by removing humanity from the human race. Relationships do not exist for pleasure, for companionship, for love. There is no human element in it, no life. Huckabee reduced human social interractions to a mechanical, cold, lifeless march towards the continuation of the species. No respect. No love. No passion.

Reproduction.
Continuation.
Babies.

It's inauthentic. It is a lie. It is incorrect. It's not just theologically problematic, existentially problematic, or logically problematic. It is actually problematic.

"The mark is that we have marriage -- men and women, they marry, they create children, and they train their replacements and you have a future generation then that creates their replacements and trains them. That's the mark."

Human beings are cattle, machines, inanimate lifeless beings who exist to reproduce and spawn new lifeless, inanimate beings forever marching towards no particular end other than continuation.

Ignore the theology, the hate, the illogical grasping at straws. Ignore all of the problems which result from this view and grasp the view itself: Huckabee does not acknowledge passion. Huckabee does not acknowledge love.

Christ had passion. Christ loved.
Homosexuals have passion. Homosexuals love.
Human beings have passion. Human beings love.

What is Huckabee?

Best handheld games of 2007

As another year comes to an end we enter that delightful period during which the "best of" list thrives. MSNBC has provided a list of the Best Handheld Games of 2007. Let's take a look:

Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Jeanne d'Arc
Pokemon Diamond/Pearl
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness
Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions
Crush

DS: 2
PSP: 6

If we removed the retarded picks from the list (Syphon Filter, Ratched & Clank, Crush) we are left with three strategy RPGs for the PSP and two DS games.

Thoughts?

I'M THE BIRTHDAY BOY!!!!

Today is the greatest day of the year; a veritable Christmas in December. Today is my birthday! All shall sing of my greatness and bask, BASK, in wonder at my awesome!

Also, Bunny with pancake on head!

Tom Nook is a Thieving Bastard: The Game

Last semester I picked up BASIC programming again and spent a couple of months learning how to do some of the things I was too stupid to do when I was a kid: things like drawing bitmaps, making rudimentary text parsers, and capturing keypresses in useful ways.

Jay and I started to do a game, which of course means that we had a lot of fun brainstorming, and then the concept died, whithered on the vine. But no matter, because here is a simple game I put together this March which allows the player to shoot Tom Nook in the head and take his damn bells (well, you can move a crosshairs over Nook's head and press SPACEBAR, and a bag of bells will appear as Nook disappears).




Special thanks for Animal Crossing for featuring the most child-slave-drivingest raccoon in the universe.

Source code on the comments page (if it'll work).

Speed Racer: Side Effects include everything.

If any of you suffer from Bulimia nervosa you no longer have to shove your finger down your throat; you can simply watch this trailer for the new Speed Racer movie directed by the Wachowsky Brothers.

Casting Edit:

God, it's His DAY OFF!

2 killed in Christian center shooting.

When asked for comment Jesus Christ, the Son of God, brusquely pushed aside reporter's questions saying, "Look. It's my DAY OFF. And if you had actually read the Bible you would damn well know that! And even if it wasn't my day off I can't just make random gunmen not kill two innocent people!"

When reports then questioned how, exactly, the human embodiment of God was unable to do something the Son of God dropped his pants and instructed reporters to quote, “Read My Scripture! Read My Rock-Hard Scripture!”